Pompeii DNA studies surprise researchers

[guy]

 

The DNA studies on the victims found at Pompeii have shown some surprising results:
 

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“The scientific data we provide do not always align with common assumptions,” says David Reich of Harvard University. “For instance, one notable example is the discovery that an adult wearing a golden bracelet and holding a child, traditionally interpreted as a mother and child, were an unrelated adult male and child. Similarly, a pair of individuals thought to be sisters, or mother and daughter, were found to include at least one genetic male. These findings challenge traditional gender and familial assumptions.”

 

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The genetic data offered insight into the Pompeiians’ ancestry, revealing that the Pompeiians had diverse genomic backgrounds. They primarily descended from recent immigrants from the eastern Mediterranean. The finding highlights the cosmopolitan nature of the Roman Empire, according to the researchers.

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1063333?

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03576-y

Edited November 7 by guy

[guy]

 

Two bodies discovered in Pompeii a century ago were found in an embrace, leading to their designation as “The Two Maidens.” For a long time, it was believed that they were either sisters or a mother and daughter. However, DNA testing revealed that the individuals were not related by blood, and at least one of them was male. This has led to the suggestion that they may have been a gay couple.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/11/08/were-the-two-maidens-of-pompeii-actually-gay-lovers-its-certainly-possible/

Edited November 10 by guy

[guidoLaMoto]

Why a surprise? Estimates are that maybe up to 30% of the Roman population was foreign born slaves.....

...and why pander to the LBGTQ crowd?....We can deduce from authors such as Catullus that homosexuality was politely "accepted"  with a nod and a wink just as it is by most today. ..Just because two people, one of whom is a male, happen to suddenly drop dead due to a poisoned air supply and fall in close proximity to each other doesn't make the odds very great that they were lovers--> the odds are 0.5 that the second guy is male and 0.005 that he is gay. That calculates to odds that this is a gay couple about 0.00025....25 out of 100,000.....With the population of Pompeii somewhere greater than 10,000 at the time, we would expect at least a handful of gay couples.

 

 

 

[guy]

 

[guy]

5 hours ago, guidoLaMoto said:

and why pander …?

Thank you for reading my post. I agree that some people project their modern beliefs onto the bodies found at Pompeii. However, I believe the lesson from this discovery is that previous generations also projected their own beliefs and prejudices onto these findings, leading to incorrect conclusions.
 We must understand how our biases and beliefs distort our perception of the world and scientific data.

Thank you once again for taking the time to read this post. Your response to the article helped me better express my sometimes skeptical view of "modern science." The amount of incorrect "settled science" I've encountered over the years is both humbling and cautionary.

Edited November 10 by guy